Assignment 13 - Close Up of An Electronic Device

We recently bought an Amazon Echo, which seems like a really good idea, because neither Doug nor I can remember anything anymore. From the advertisements, it seems like you can just call out “Alexa, add butter to my shopping list,” and snap! you have an electronic shopping list and it has butter on it. There is also the “Alexa, remind me to walk the dog at 5pm,” and she does that too. Before pulling her out of the box, I decided that she would be the subject of this week’s 52 week project, since the theme was “A close up of an electronic device.”

My first impression was that the device was a lot larger than I was expecting it to be. I thought it would be maybe the diameter of a 50 cent piece and maybe 5 inches tall. I pulled it out of the box to find something that was closer to 10" tall and wider than a coke can. My “close ups” are showing a lot less of the device than I was originally planning because the span of the product is so much larger.

I had decided to focus my first set of images on the speaker part with the Amazon logo. I set the device up with a 24” x 36” softbox to camera right, and a white card to camera left, with some black cards scattered around the front to give it some depth and shadowy areas. I then zoomed on I various aspects of the device and even put it on glass to get a reflection of the Amazon logo. At one point I added a scrim to camera left with a blue gelled strobe to give the left side of the product a blue cast. I felt the blue gave it an “electronic” feel. Here are a few of those images:

I raised my camera up to get an angled shot of the buttons on the top. I put the blue gelled light behind the scene shooting on the background. This is probably my least favorite of all the images:

I then put the device on a low table, put my softbox and a strip box on either side of the product, and shot straight down on the top. Under the device I put white and blue paper, angled across the device, which is a similar type of background I’ve given a few of my recent shots. This is the result:

A funny side note about Alexa. After you get the system started, the app makes suggestions on how to use Alexa. It suggested asking Alexa to tell a holiday joke. Always game for some amusement, we said "Alexa, tell us a holiday joke." Being in a very silly mood, I thought the joke was laugh out loud funny, particularly coming from an electronic device, so I’m sharing it here.

What is Santa Claus’ nationality?

[Wait for it…]

North Polish!

This will likely be my last post before the holidays, so I hope everyone has a terrific holiday season and I’ll catch you in the New Year!